Is research into virtual communication methodologies at the expense of research that might solve or ameliorate the serious global issues of our time fundamentally irresponsible? To answer the question in two words: Absolutely not.
Communication, no matter what form, is the fundamental and essential backbone of all interactions between humans and all other living beings. Consider being unable to communicate with anyone just one day in your life. I bet it will drive you crazy if not suicidal if it were for a prolonged time period. Our life finds meaning and purpose through communication with others. We constantly try to communicate every facet of our life and often struggle to find the right words to express it all. No research is fundamentally irresponsible, least of all virtual communication methodologies. To begin with, the term virtual in itself implies something global which embodies no boundaries. “Virtual” can exist anywhere and for anybody at anytime. Virtual communication is not only about communication as we know it (oral and written); it’s about a three dimensional space in infinite time. Resources are scarce today in the rest of the world. Virtual space can create space, resources and time; people appear to be omnipresent and everlasting. We were once a local community but with the advent of technology and the Internet with its advanced communication forums we are now a global community. Collaborative technologies have made learning, commerce, relationships and a multitude of issues completely transparent and accessible to millions. One of the biggest winners of virtual communication technology has been employers. They no longer have to pay their employees to travel, take time off or suffer loss of productivity. Employees can communicate, exchange, and conduct business from home or their offices. The number of people traveling and wasting endless amounts of gas and creating carbon dioxide has decreased dramatically since the advent of virtual technologies. A study found that virtual office workers were more satisfied with organization communication than traditional office workers (Akkirman & Harris, 2005). Virtual communication technologies increase the efficiency of communication especially in virtual teams. Group communication is strengthened through an inter-group central channel. Further, ease of information transmission makes it possible to reach the information at the source, allowing efficient and correct decisions (Altınöz, M, 2009). People who have suffered serious personal disorders have now become productive contributing members of society via technology mediated mediums. People with personality issues, communication apprehensions and physical disabilities can now contribute to society by sitting at the computers. In part, it achieves this by assessing how people create, negotiate, and reproduce complex virtual social places (Carter, 2004). Virtual worlds allow for students to learn without inhibition and complete privacy; students who are tormented by anxiety can practice and create new ideas in a completely fail safe environment at any time. The virtual world is always awake and ready to indulge them. Experiments, practices, and tests amongst others were once the domain of only those who could afford them. The virtual world has now made it possible for everyone to participate and learn without ever having to pay recurring costs, damages, accidents or failures. The same experiment can be done a million times with no cost beyond setting it up in the virtual world. The key, for teaching practical skills virtually, is creating innovative instructional strategies that address the specified learning outcomes that match, as closely as possible, the skills needed in the real world (Fenrich, 2002). Need for costly equipment, personnel, raw materials and expendable materials has decreased making the virtual world very green, cost effective, interactive, immersive and repetitive without exhaustion or time/space limitations. The World Wide Web created a platform that can enable learners to get in touch with measurement resources worldwide by requiring a minimal connection cost, allowing the realization of numerous flexible and customized measurement experiments (Roman et al. 2008). People around the world can now send and receive messages within seconds; bad news, good news, and great news all travel around the world within seconds. News that would have taken weeks to reach now beeps on the monitor within seconds. Ability to produce content has reached every common citizen across the globe, a privilege that once belonged to only a few. The media and the wealthy no longer have complete control over content as in the past. Each and every common citizen in any part of the planet can capture and distribute information within seconds. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the dictatorship in Iran, the tragedies in Africa are visible and available for consumption within moments of occurrence. Natural disasters can now be forewarned to allow for preparation. Great calamities that would have once devoured large portions of the human population are now predicted and avoided due to the speed and availability of virtual communication technologies. Emergency processes, methods and management can be enacted from afar to help people who are incapable of dealing with these crises, likewise medication, surgery and complex expertise can be transferred through the virtual methodologies (Guernsey, 1999). New environments like virtual worlds, present additional opportunities and challenges for communication. In such settings, there is a visual component to the online interaction that is lacking in email or instant messaging: we can see a “body” that goes with the voice or text conversation. Affordances like this can help foster a feeling of presence and give us clues about when the other person is listening, when he or she wishes to speak, and when his or her attention is directed elsewhere. This is not to say that these environments offer the same contextual cues as face-to-face communication—they do not; but there is an added dimension to interactions in these spaces that does not occur in other online contexts (The New Media). With virtual reality you are no longer confined to your finger tips at the keyboard. You can now communicate with your whole body. Being connected with electrodes makes it possible to gesture and articulate postures and movements that can be easily seen and reacted to by the others. Knowledge that was once acquired through only the written word can now come to life in the virtual world. Enactments, simulations and animations are all now part of the learning experience. Once upon a time, you could only write about things you thought; now you can create what you can dream and alter it a million times, all from the comfort of your living room. You can interact with the world and all the objects in it and learn how they react and exist around you. Knowledge that was once only words in a book can now be brought to life in 3 dimensions, similar to the world we live in. Statistics claim that over 15 percent of the people in this country have learning disabilities and challenges (NICHD, 2010), and others suffer from great apprehension which limits communication. Virtual communications can change all that and, once again, make it possible for these disabled and disadvantaged people to participate and become productive members of our society. Case studies: Constructivist learning environments: Brent Gayle Wilson The development of immersive learning technologies in the form of virtual reality and advanced computer applications has meant that realistic creations of simulated environments are now possible. Such simulations have been used to great effect in training in the military, air force, and in medical training. New communication environments: from everyday to virtual: Giuseppe Mantovani This is the first case report to demonstrate the efficacy of immersive computer-generated virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (touching real objects which patients also saw in VR) for the treatment of spider phobia. The subject was a 37 year-old female with a severe and incapacitating fear of spiders. Twelve weekly 1-hr sessions were conducted over a 3-month period. Outcome was assessed on measures of anxiety, avoidance, and changes in behavior toward real spiders. VR graded exposure therapy was successful for reducing fear of spiders, providing converging evidence for a growing literature showing the effectiveness of VR as a new medium for exposure therapy. References: Akkirman, A. D., & Harris, D. L. (2005). Organizational communication satisfaction in the virtual workplace. Journal of Management Development, 24(5), 397-409. doi:{{10.1108/02621710510598427}} Altınöz, M. (2009). An Overall Approach to the Communication of Organizations in Conventional and Virtual Offices. International Journal of Social Sciences, 4(3), 217-223. doi:Article Denise M. Carter. Journal of Urban Technology, Volume 11, Number 3, pages 109–125. Copyright # 2004 by The Society of Urban Technology. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 1063-0732 paper=ISSN: 1466-1853 online DOI: 10.1080=10630730500064448 Fenrich, P. (2002). An instructional model for teaching troubleshooting skills. Proceedings of the Informing Science and IT Education Conference. Roman Malaric´, Marko Jurcˇevic´, Hrvoje Hegedusˇ, Drago Cmuk and Petar Mostarac Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia. 2008 Guernsey, Wired Virtual Patients Simulate Emergencies for Students. 1999.
The New Media Consortium; released under a Creative Commons Attribution- Share Alike 3.0 United States License. For details please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/ National Institute of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
To answer the question in two words: Absolutely not.
Communication, no matter what form, is the fundamental and essential backbone of all interactions between humans and all other living beings. Consider being unable to communicate with anyone just one day in your life. I bet it will drive you crazy if not suicidal if it were for a prolonged time period. Our life finds meaning and purpose through communication with others. We constantly try to communicate every facet of our life and often struggle to find the right words to express it all.
No research is fundamentally irresponsible, least of all virtual communication methodologies. To begin with, the term virtual in itself implies something global which embodies no boundaries. “Virtual” can exist anywhere and for anybody at anytime. Virtual communication is not only about communication as we know it (oral and written); it’s about a three dimensional space in infinite time. Resources are scarce today in the rest of the world. Virtual space can create space, resources and time; people appear to be omnipresent and everlasting.
We were once a local community but with the advent of technology and the Internet with its advanced communication forums we are now a global community. Collaborative technologies have made learning, commerce, relationships and a multitude of issues completely transparent and accessible to millions.
One of the biggest winners of virtual communication technology has been employers. They no longer have to pay their employees to travel, take time off or suffer loss of productivity. Employees can communicate, exchange, and conduct business from home or their offices. The number of people traveling and wasting endless amounts of gas and creating carbon dioxide has decreased dramatically since the advent of virtual technologies. A study found that virtual office workers were more satisfied with organization communication than traditional office workers (Akkirman & Harris, 2005). Virtual communication technologies increase the efficiency of communication especially in virtual teams. Group communication is strengthened through an inter-group central channel. Further, ease of information transmission makes it possible to reach the information at the source, allowing efficient and correct decisions (Altınöz, M, 2009).
People who have suffered serious personal disorders have now become productive contributing members of society via technology mediated mediums. People with personality issues, communication apprehensions and physical disabilities can now contribute to society by sitting at the computers. In part, it achieves this by assessing how people create, negotiate, and reproduce complex virtual social places (Carter, 2004).
Virtual worlds allow for students to learn without inhibition and complete privacy; students who are tormented by anxiety can practice and create new ideas in a completely fail safe environment at any time. The virtual world is always awake and ready to indulge them. Experiments, practices, and tests amongst others were once the domain of only those who could afford them. The virtual world has now made it possible for everyone to participate and learn without ever having to pay recurring costs, damages, accidents or failures. The same experiment can be done a million times with no cost beyond setting it up in the virtual world. The key, for teaching practical skills virtually, is creating innovative instructional strategies that address the specified learning outcomes that match, as closely as possible, the skills needed in the real world (Fenrich, 2002). Need for costly equipment, personnel, raw materials and expendable materials has decreased making the virtual world very green, cost effective, interactive, immersive and repetitive without exhaustion or time/space limitations. The World Wide Web created a platform that can enable learners to get in touch with measurement resources worldwide by requiring a minimal connection cost, allowing the realization of numerous flexible and customized measurement experiments (Roman et al. 2008).
People around the world can now send and receive messages within seconds; bad news, good news, and great news all travel around the world within seconds. News that would have taken weeks to reach now beeps on the monitor within seconds. Ability to produce content has reached every common citizen across the globe, a privilege that once belonged to only a few. The media and the wealthy no longer have complete control over content as in the past. Each and every common citizen in any part of the planet can capture and distribute information within seconds. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the dictatorship in Iran, the tragedies in Africa are visible and available for consumption within moments of occurrence. Natural disasters can now be forewarned to allow for preparation. Great calamities that would have once devoured large portions of the human population are now predicted and avoided due to the speed and availability of virtual communication technologies. Emergency processes, methods and management can be enacted from afar to help people who are incapable of dealing with these crises, likewise medication, surgery and complex expertise can be transferred through the virtual methodologies (Guernsey, 1999).
New environments like virtual worlds, present additional opportunities and challenges for communication. In such settings, there is a visual component to the online interaction that is lacking in email or instant messaging: we can see a “body” that goes with the voice or text conversation. Affordances like this can help foster a feeling of presence and give us clues about when the other person is listening, when he or she wishes to speak, and when his or her attention is directed elsewhere. This is not to say that these environments offer the same contextual cues as face-to-face communication—they do not; but there is an added dimension to interactions in these spaces that does not occur in other online contexts (The New Media).
With virtual reality you are no longer confined to your finger tips at the keyboard. You can now communicate with your whole body. Being connected with electrodes makes it possible to gesture and articulate postures and movements that can be easily seen and reacted to by the others. Knowledge that was once acquired through only the written word can now come to life in the virtual world. Enactments, simulations and animations are all now part of the learning experience. Once upon a time, you could only write about things you thought; now you can create what you can dream and alter it a million times, all from the comfort of your living room.
You can interact with the world and all the objects in it and learn how they react and exist around you. Knowledge that was once only words in a book can now be brought to life in 3 dimensions, similar to the world we live in. Statistics claim that over 15 percent of the people in this country have learning disabilities and challenges (NICHD, 2010), and others suffer from great apprehension which limits communication. Virtual communications can change all that and, once again, make it possible for these disabled and disadvantaged people to participate and become productive members of our society.
Case studies:
Constructivist learning environments: Brent Gayle Wilson The development of immersive learning technologies in the form of virtual reality and advanced computer applications has meant that realistic creations of simulated environments are now possible. Such simulations have been used to great effect in training in the military, air force, and in medical training.
New communication environments: from everyday to virtual: Giuseppe Mantovani This is the first case report to demonstrate the efficacy of immersive computer-generated virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (touching real objects which patients also saw in VR) for the treatment of spider phobia. The subject was a 37 year-old female with a severe and incapacitating fear of spiders. Twelve weekly 1-hr sessions were conducted over a 3-month period. Outcome was assessed on measures of anxiety, avoidance, and changes in behavior toward real spiders. VR graded exposure therapy was successful for reducing fear of spiders, providing converging evidence for a growing literature showing the effectiveness of VR as a new medium for exposure therapy.
References:
Akkirman, A. D., & Harris, D. L. (2005). Organizational communication satisfaction in the virtual workplace. Journal of Management Development, 24(5), 397-409. doi:{{10.1108/02621710510598427}}
Altınöz, M. (2009). An Overall Approach to the Communication of Organizations in Conventional and Virtual Offices. International Journal of Social Sciences, 4(3), 217-223. doi:Article
Denise M. Carter. Journal of Urban Technology, Volume 11, Number 3, pages 109–125. Copyright # 2004 by The Society of Urban Technology. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 1063-0732 paper=ISSN: 1466-1853 online DOI: 10.1080=10630730500064448 Fenrich, P. (2002). An instructional model for teaching troubleshooting skills. Proceedings of the Informing Science and IT Education Conference.
Roman Malaric´, Marko Jurcˇevic´, Hrvoje Hegedusˇ, Drago Cmuk and Petar Mostarac
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia. 2008
Guernsey, Wired Virtual Patients Simulate Emergencies for Students. 1999.
The New Media Consortium; released under a Creative Commons Attribution- Share Alike 3.0 United States License. For details please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
National Institute of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.